Autodesk Construction Cloud API Update and Beyond

MIRAKO HARADA: Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining the Autodesk University 2023. I'm going to talk about Autodesk Construction Cloud API updates and also a little bit of a roadmap. I call it beyond. And my name is Mikako Harada. I'm a Senior Manager at the Developer Technical Services, focusing on the AEC. Safe harbor statement. Today, I'm going to cover a little bit of the forward-looking features. So please don't make purchase decisions based on the forward-looking materials.

Agenda. Autodesk Construction Cloud. And I will start from the Autodesk Construction Cloud Overview. Autodesk Construction Cloud, the word Autodesk Construction Cloud sometimes used as a branding and then also product. So I want to go through what it means by Autodesk Construction Cloud today.

And followed by, I'll give you a big picture about the API status and updates. And I'll also go through module by module update based on latest recent updates. And there is two big features we are adding soon, Parameters API and Model Aggregation API. I'm going to talk a little bit in depth about those two areas. Disclaimer. So this recording was done on September 15, year 2023. And it might-- I might add a little more new information by the time the Autodesk University in-person event happens.

First, Autodesk Construction Cloud Overview. So some of you might have seen similar charts like this before. So first, construction management at the Autodesk, big picture, high-level product and then offering. Autodesk grows with acquisitions. And ACS, or Autodesk Construction Services, team is also not exception.

So more than 10 years ago, Autodesk acquired Horizontal Glue followed by Vela systems. And those products, we still support and exist. And since then, we have changed, for instance, rebranding to BIM 360 field or Glue, and then also combined with PlanGrid and PlanGrid products. And we are now in a phase of Autodesk Construction Cloud as one unified platforms. More recently, Autodesk acquired Assemble, BuildingConnected Pype, and then ProEst. Those products are also being combined little by little. And you probably start seeing this near future.

So this is a big snapshot of latest product offering. On the left side, you see the full products, Build, Takeoff, BIM Collaborate, and Docs. On the right side, you see additional product, such as the ones I mentioned earlier. And in a previous image, we saw many products. That one is basically used as a branding, while sometimes we also use Autodesk Construction Cloud as a unified product.

And those are the ones you see here. So five product, Autodesk BIM collaborate and BIM Collaborate Pro, Autodesk Takeoff and Autodesk Build. And then also, as a foundation of those five-- four product, we also have Autodesk Docs. And these Docs-- these products also shares common components, such as insight and administration.

So in terms of product access, we have the URL acc.autodesk.com in the US Data Center. And then also in Europe, you can use acc.autodesk.eu. And these are the place you can start using the Autodesk Construction Cloud product. So right now, you can-- if you use-- access those URL, you see the entry point of a project together with, for instance, the BIM 360 and then ACC newer unified product, and then as well as the PlanGrid, BuildingConnected, TradeTapp, Pype, et cetera. So little by little, for instance, starting with the access login, you can start to see those things are integrated.

In this entry, the product team studied the product roadmap. You can find at the construction.autodesk.com at the product/-- product-roadmaps. You may want to take a look. This is mainly targeted for the product features. But occasionally, they include API, if not all. So you may want to take a look every once in a while. And this also not just a unified product. It also include additional product as well, such as BuildingConnected.

Now let's take a look at the API status and updates. So one of the things you may start to notice is that in addition to Autodesk Construction Cloud and BIM 360 APIs, you start to see additional API product offering added to the dev portal. BuildingConnected parameters are added there.

And also, recently, we have released ACC Admin read APIs. This one is backward compatible. So the API proxy to use is also you have-- since it's backward compatibility, you need to use ACC API. So this is a new way of using-- choosing proxies. So just be aware.

And this is the BIM 360 ACC API component services mapped with the layers. And then, put it in a structure. So from the top, you can see BIM Collaborate or BIM Collaborate Pro specific API, for instance, a model coordination. And then Takeoff. Build also has many components, such as asset, cost, RFI, et cetera. Those are matching with the product features.

And we are-- the underneath of that, we also have Docs. Docs is basically built on top of Autodesk platform API, which you see at the bottom. I put it. So Autodesk Platform API provides, for instance, a data management API. Docs also have a special API, specialized API, such as custom attribute, naming standard, permissions, PDF export.

And then on top-- below that, you see the shared services. So for instance, Data Connector is shared by any of those five products, as well as Model Properties, which originally came from model coordination. But you can use as long as your model is in Docs. And also, relationships is also used in a product as a form of relationship [INAUDIBLE] in the product.

And in addition, you can also see admin, issues, location, which also appear in various products. In this mapping, you see the green one is ACC only. And later on, it's actually only one, checklist only exist in BIM 360. And then, this yellow one is the ones-- it's changed. Or not compatible, or partially compatible, if you compare between ACC and then BIM 360.

And here are the ACC roadmaps. So from the beginning of this year, if you consider beginning of this year, we recently added Auto Specs, read API, BuildingConnected, also Read API, and Forms, write API, Web Forms, write API. And then Cost also, they released the first webhooks within ACC product. And Data Connector added activity support, which was also highly demanded feature. And then, Cost recently released the schedule of value expense and payment. Those are recently added. Now you can use.

And currently, we have an admin project, User Read Admin Project, the user read. This one is actually already released. And then-- but it's actually the public betas. And we-- the product team is working on the write API, which is currently in private beta. And also, parameter is currently public beta.

We are hoping to move to general availability or official release very soon. And Cost team continue to release more API endpoint. And we are waiting for the documentation at this point for contract, performance tracking, and timesheet. API itself is ready. But the documentation is about to come out.

BuildingConnected team is also actively working for the write API. And right now, there is an invitation to the preview versions. In near future, we are hoping to have admin project creation and adding a user end point, which is equal to write endpoint to the public betas, and then followed by, soon, general availabilities. Our fingers crossed. This one is a very highly demanded feature.

And we are also conducting a review private beta right now. And also, submit the read API is planned for the beta. And then, aggregate. Model aggregation. Name, actually, has changed recently. So model aggregation is also expected to come in near future. And BuildingConnected write, also. We are going to public release. And TradeTapp also working on releasing. And hopefully, before the end of this year.

Attribute. That's the two attribute, project level support attribute and then also markup issues support for pushpin support. These are the ones-- we are still the study to discuss. And the timing is not clear. But we are hoping to release it as a high priority soon.

And beyond that, we also have the secure service account. This is also extremely highly demanded features. The product team is in the stage of researching at this point. So hopefully, next year, we will start seeing some portion of the implementations.

And then, BuildingConnected is also planning to release webhooks. This may be-- if everything goes smoothly with write API side, then it might be coming soon after the write BuildingConnected APIs. And then, alignment and design collaboration package settings are also discussed. But this is probably not going to see this year. It's probably beyond this year, end of this year, next year.

Now let's take a look at those recently released APIs and then, also, APIs we are expected to see soon module by module. The first one is Admin. So Admin API, I hear many times the customer and partner is asking, when do we have ACC Admin API? And also, customer is saying that they want to move to ACC, but we don't want to do it manually. So we definitely need API. We cannot do without the API.

So we hear you. And in fact, I'm really very much close to the customer's perspective as well in sharing some pains. And we are pushing very hard. So Admin API is committed to release this complete very soon. So first, the lead API, GET project and also GET project users, we released as a beta in June, a few months ago. And this endpoint is compatible for ACC and BIM 360.

So for instance, if you go to acc.autodesk.com, you see the project listing with either ACC or BIM 360 icons. So same as that state. You can get a list of project using this endpoint. And it supports both 2LO, 3LO, and also 2LO, two-legged authentication, plus user impersonations. Now the next, we want to release the project creation and user-- adding a user equal to write API. So currently, it's in private beta state. And we want to move it to public.

We actually finished most of the implementations. But there is one more endpoint the engineering team is working based on the feedback we received during the private beta. So I hope that this little extra time will be in a good outcome because we got very good feedback during the private beta period.

So the API will be partially compatible. So no method to-- for instance, this thing distinguish [INAUDIBLE]. Actually, this Admin API in general. Partially, Admin API is partially compatible. Some of the API you use, what you see in the BIM360 side is usable in ACC as well. But there are certain things you need to pay attention. And this-- filling out those gaps is high priority areas.

So about the ones on the private betas, which is project creation and adding users. So currently, it's private beta. And you can-- good thing about this creating a project is that it supports template, supporting a template that has been released even for BIM 360. But this ACC version of create a project support the template.

This will reduce the amount of coding tremendously because, without it, you probably need to recreate, for instance, the data management using a data management API and creating structures. So you need to-- you can take advantage of templates. And assign product to the user is also supported. This one also, BIM 360 side, was-- had a little bit of gaps there. But this should be working for ACC project side.

But this is not compatible with BIM 360. This is dedicated for the ACC project. And right now, engineering team is tuning scalabilities. And that was another reason that team was taking a little more time and very cautious about that. And right now, if you are interested in joining private beta, even though we expect that the public release will be coming very soon, but just in case, suggested usage with a private beta is small. We are asking to use it in small basis because we are not ready for the production.

And that said, we still need to have some more functions waiting, which is not included in the initial release, is that, for instance, job status and the webhooks. For instance, when the project creation is done, we may want to receive the notification instead of reporting the status. And those more enhanced or more advanced feature will follow after the initial release.

And something we may-- that we already did is that the GET project and GET project users. And I just want to point out, this one is, as I mentioned, compatible for both BIM 360 and ACC. When you are looking at the product listing, for instance, you'll probably see the mixture. And you may get confused. So I just wanted to point out before you get confused and wonder about it.

For instance, if you are using ACC, you'll see document management site as Docs, while if you are using BIM 360, it will show as a document management. And you'll also see some of the product, which may not be accessible at this point. But it's a future enhancement. And you may see some product names. But at this point, if you are not recognizing it, you can simply ignore it.

And ACC Unified Products Service Access. So in order to give access to the project members, in UI, you will go to the Project Admin page. And then, you the toggle the access for each product or services. Those are the ones you should be able to access. And then also, when the write API is available, you should be turning on those.

Another thing to mention is, to make it clear upfront, that the unified product licensing in addition to-- the previous page, I talked about product access. But licensing is a different, separate story. So account admin side, or if you go to the manage.autodesk.com, you can give access.

So you can assign license in two ways in general, in two places. This action is not available in the API, at least for this initial release. We are talking about assigning a user. This is purely about project level, not admin level. So just be aware. And no API for this part in upcoming release.

And as I walk around, as I also get the question every once in a while as I walk around, you can use import from CSV file even though this is not fully automate. It doesn't help programmatically aspect. But still, it's better than assigning one-by-one. So just pointing out as a workaround for now.

So the next one is issues. So issue is-- as many of you already aware, it's a shared services. And it is used by Docs, Build, Design Collaboration, Model Coordination, and also desktop product, such as Revit and Navisworks. So API is not compatible between ACC and BIM 360. And BIM 360 issue side, recently, the V1, version 1, was deprecated. And we moved to V2.

And the deal was relatively recent, last month, about one month ago. And if you are one of the many partners who worked on this, thank you very much. We still have a handful of customers who are working on it. We are-- the whitelist allow listing in the back end. But everybody will move very soon.

An ACC issue side, we still have a gap about the markup, as known as the pushpin. You can read pushpin datas. But you cannot create the set. Unofficially, if you try this pushpin with a BIM 361, you may be able to create it. But the official stance is that it's not officially supported. And ACC team, issues team, is planning to change these markup features or including markup instead of using the way BIM 360 was implemented. So there is a chance that it will be changing in relatively short period of time. So if you are very careful about investing this time, then you don't need to be careful using that.

Data Connector. So data Connector Is a part of the insight. And this API itself is compatible between the two environment. But the data may vary. For instance, some of the feature may not exist. For instance, checklist doesn't exist in ACC. So there is some differences data. But come API itself, endpoint itself, it's compatible.

So last year, we released the project level access instead of the account level access and dumping whole account data. We added the project level access. This was actually very well received. And this year, we added activities log. So activities log is also highly demanded. And we hear. But now you can access. Even though it's not in the live update, but you can dump the activity log through this API.

And one piece of note is that the activities support uses additional field for time range. And it has a start date and an end date. These are the start date and end date of extractions. The reason being that the amount of data, considering the amount of data, because as you can easily imagine, this activity is logging all the users' activities. And the amount of data is huge. So supported range is needed. And right now, only activity takes this start date, end point. It doesn't affect other part of the data extraction. So just be aware.

And another thing is that data is accessible up to one year back. And older than that, you cannot access. Again, the same reason, the amount of data. And also, at one time, at one given time, you can extract up to seven days. No more than seven days. Again, the same considerations, amount of datas. And for more information, there is a blog post about this. So [INAUDIBLE] such as a Data Connector with activity support keyword.

Review. So review is currently in private beta state. And overwhelmingly, we have received a lot of interest to participate in this. So if you are one of them, thank you very much. So the first original-- initial scope of this API include read and write. That's the good news. And as listed, it's include review in project side and then, also, project admin side and workflow as well.

And at this initial release, we-- it's not including the comments and the webhooks. But especially webhooks, we have received a lot of feedback saying that the webhook is necessary. So after the initial release, the review team is discussing to support this. So we'll see. And again, if you are interested in also by the [INAUDIBLE] AU, we may be releasing other public betas. But in case it's still under private, then you can contact in this email address, accreview.api.feedback.

Cost Management. So cost management, cost management, the module has many features, many feature enhancement with customization capabilities. And it has a lot of endpoint as well. So API itself is compatible in both environment. And they have-- cost team has been continuously releasing endpoints. And this year, they have released webhooks and then schedule of values, expense, and payment. And the schedule of value and expense are already done. And then, payment delete.

And then coming soon, we have already API implemented. And documentation is one we are waiting to come. And those are the ones, main contract, and performance tracking, and timesheet. And of course, the team has been quite responsive about the request. So if you have any specific request, feel free to contact us.

And here is some feel of how comprehensive the Cost API is. So here is a list of webhooks they recently released as well. And then, we also have a GitHub sample with webhooks. And then also, tutorial is updated. So [INAUDIBLE].

And forms. Forms are the-- two years ago, we released the read API. And finally, this year, we released the write API for creating a forms instance. And you can fill and update the values in forms. However, you cannot create the templates yet. So those are still to come. And there is no delete API yet. So sometimes, I think in the document-- the product side communications, people might have included delete. But actually, delete is not there. So just pointing out.

AutoSpecs. So AutoSpec is new product features added this year in March. And this is a feature that intelligently read the construction specifications and automatically extract the submitter information. It uses machine learning and AI technologies. And this one is supported with North America, meaning that the US and Canada. And this product is offered in Autodesk Construction, so-called Operations Bundle, meaning the Docs, Build, Pype, AutoSpecs, and Pype Closeout.

And it is a part of the build trials. However, the trials include these AutoSpecs. However, once you-- if you have only build subscriptions, it's not included. You need to have a separate license with the operations bundle. And integrated with Autodesk Build, meaning that you can publish, submit a log directory to build. And then also, you can store and update project specifications from Docs. And you can also identify QA/QC requirements and closeout submitters.

In the API, currently, we have four endpoint. But main thing is the second one, GET smart register. You can retrieve all the submitted logs, including submitter type, division code, and spec numbers, and then also help out other of the helper functions to make it easier to reach to specific informations.

Submittals. So submittal is almost ready to public beta. And we are targeting Q3. Hopefully, by in person AU, we will have this as public access. And scope of the first release is read-only. We can get items, attachment, item types, response, and then spec, and then packages.

BuildingConnected. So BuildingConnected is a online platform that connects owners, and builders, and all the building professionals. And this is a very interesting new environment. I sometimes use the analogy, if you have a desktop, you work your desktop application, only your cell phone, your-- the isolated environment. And if you use ACC or BIM 360, you collaborate with known peoples within company or within communities.

And this BuildingConnected actually go beyond that in terms of collaboration. It provides a platform to streamlining bidding and risk management processes. So it definitely brings the collaboration in the next phase, next levels. This one is available only for North America. And there are three subtypes, subproducts.

One is BuildingConnected Pro, which create-- provide a large network to invite vendors and manage proposals. And Bid Board Pro manages the bid invitees to the help-- help creating-- making a right decision. And then TradeTaps, this one is qualifying subcontractors to mitigate risks and things like that.

So APIs. So Read API was released in March this year. And the link, it is linked with ACC Docs, Autodesk Docs. And right now, the read-only APIs support project, which is actually different from the ACC project, but the project, bid packages, invite bids, and so on. Quite a good coverage.

So what it does is that-- so the samples, so BuildingConnected and Takeoff sample, was created by one of my team members. And it actually inspect the build labeling while comparing data from Takeoff.

So this is the UI for the BuildingConnected. And you can see the test, the project. And under this test project, there is the bid packages. And under this bid packages, the name Audubon Building, you are showing-- extracting bid labeling. There was two bid labeling. So there is a company called Norris Dullea and then Company Test. So as you can see, you can extract the bid labeling, also bid package overview. And in parallel, this application is accessing the Takeoff informations.

From Takeoff informations, you can see the inventory data. You can extract the inventory data from Takeoff. And in this case, manually, however, you can see if the model data and then the extracted inventory data is matching with bidding, the labeling informations. This is just to make it easier to see what kind of information you are looking at. So having those visual things is probably helpful to make sure you are looking at the same informations, the correct informations.

So as you can see, API, and even if you have only read APIs, you can do quite interesting things. And then now, the next step, the BuildingConnected team is looking for the write as we speak. And also in the-- ambitiously, they are planning to release in the web, even webhooks, this year. But we will see. And then TradeTapp also in this Q3. So BuildingConnected team is fully straight ahead to the full speed.

And parameters. So what is Parameters Service? I'm pretty sure if you are a user of Revit, then you probably paid attention to this feature. So the parameter service is used in the product. And you can see this in two locations. One is ACC, account admin, library, and parameters. What it does is that you can define parameters, which is shared by the collaborators.

And another-- second place is in Revit. So if you have Revit 2023 or 4 and go to manage, setting, parameter services, you can see very similar UI to access parameters. And you can also define from there and then save it to ACC. So it is also called-- you can consider this as a shared parameter in the cloud.

So this initiative address changes-- challenges. For instance, even if it's called the shared parameters, the fact is many people create their shared parameter by themselves. And they save it, their own versions.

However, by sharing this one in the project files, ACC, your ACC project, ACC account, you can actually really have a single source of truth, the storage for the API parameter's definitions. So it's really helps the coordinate and collaborations among different people or even beyond the company.

So the API side, right now, it's public beta. And in fact, we actually talked about the Parameters API at the last AU. But we have extended features quite a lot. So public API, read/write parameter definition, including tags. And it's a REST API. And we are hoping to have a GA hopefully before a year. So by the time you are watching this video, it might be already, hopefully, January general release, officially released.

But we are also hoping to have more. So for instance, collection creation was added in the features. We want to have the-- right now, you can access collections. But we also want to create the collections. And probably, later this year or next year. And there is a lot of potential. This one is not limited to Revit.

And you can use other products as well. So for instance, Civil 3D, Plant 3D are interested in using this. And my colleague created the sample in AutoCAD side. So if you need a definition, want to share it, and then also doesn't create many versions, then you can use these features from various products, including third-party product.

And the samples. So we have export or import to/from CSV, and also shared parameter samples. So what this code sample does is that it export the parameters definitions stored in ACC and create the first custom web page. From then, export to CSV. And after exported, you can edit CSV file and then import back.

And then also, we actually got the idea, or some customer was asking if they can use this to create or read from existing shared parameter because this feature is supported only from-- only for 2023 and above. So this way, you maybe still make use of supporting all the versions, still taking single source of truth stored in ACC and then going back to the old product. So this sample demonstrates how to use this.

So first, getting information from the ACC, and then putting into CSV, and then editing some datas. Quickly changing the samples. Yeah, this is just to demonstrate functionality. So it's not realistic datas. But you get the idea. So now, you save this one.

And then now, import this one, edited CSV file to the application. And then now, you see the updated one. This is a sample. Again, it's not realistic data. But you can get the idea. Now UI, if you look at this, you should be able to see the file is updated here as well. So this demonstrate two-way integrations.

So next one is integration with asset. So asset has a project setting to set the parameters, and asset category, and custom attribute. So this one actually take settings from the ACC-- sorry, the parameters and then automatically create the asset category and the attribute settings. So this is parameters windows. And this is the asset settings. And right now, you don't have anything. And now you go to-- it's showing the category and custom field.

And now, this is the samples getting parameters from parameter service. And now you see COBie component listed. This one is taken from the parameters. And now you choose one or two COBie component lengths and an external identifier. And then, now put it in an asset.

And now you can see set asset category. Type in that. This came from the parameters category. And then, custom attribute came from the parameter names. And then now, you go back to the product's asset settings. And you see custom field is filled with two parameters. And then, it's comparing both. And if you click on Categories, categories also added.

So next, so Model Aggregation. So what it is, so Model Aggregation merges viewables. And if you have heard in the past, the Model Coordination team has been talking about the slice and dice, the analogy to find cluster detections. And you can actually-- instead of handling big, humongous models, you can take the portion of the data, for instance, by floors or by certain areas. And this one is built on top of model properties.

If you remember, I was talking about the model properties last year, which is the field-- which allows you to filter and index the parameters. And then also, you can even compare the two versions of the parameters, the models. So it is used in product. So Design Collaboration, changes, uses this, the model properties and filtering features.

And then also, if you look at the model coordination saved view and then filter crashes, you are using filtering capabilities. And you can also see modular coordination saved to Docs, which create partial model saved into Docs. So these are the ones you might have seen already in the product. And potentially, this one can be used in assets. So for instance, an asset, equipment, and those things are usually focused on individual elements.

So this feature is a shared component within ACC and BIM 360, and currently in release process. And we are hoping to release beta access very soon. And for instance, this is a preview for the product. In addition to our-- the existing filtering, we have advanced filters. For instance, in this case, dimension length is bigger than-- longer than 30 feet. You can filter like that in model coordination, for instance.

And then, you can save this. You can save this one. And this is the image of the docs. So on the top, you see the object longer than 30 feet. This is a result of saving two docs. So you can see this doc only in this, the element you are seeing. Other part of the model is all excluded. So the model will be much lighter.

So this is-- we are planning to have some samples. This shows-- for instance, you see the section block. You can actually limit the element by the section block. Or you can actually create a-- select the object by picking. And you can also limit by that or by rooms and filtering. We are hoping to have some comprehensive examples using this API.

And one thing we can show today as a preview of samples is that publishing subset of multiple models. So it uses-- publishes two clashing object as a new file in a new folder in the Docs. And this is to showcase the ability to publish subset of the object instead of the entire models. So this one is choosing example with the hospital example. So you see the model here? This is the model with architecture model, and mechanical model, and structural model combined.

Now you see the cross between this, the floors and then something? And then, you see only the subset of the model. And this one, you need to change the little angles. So you can see a roof. And the architecture part is colliding. And this one is extracted and then saved in the Docs under Files folder.

And this is a Docs view. As you can see, you only see two elements. And then if you look at the-- then this is another example. It takes a little time. And then, you save it to Docs. Again, the same thing. If you go to-- this is by viewer. And you see those elements. And then, you can see only two elements is listed here. And then, again, if you go to Docs, you see the two elements.

So today, used in model coordination. And we are hoping to have a beta API release coming soon. So today, we talked about the Autodesk Construction Cloud Overview. And we have a lot of product within Autodesk Construction Cloud, the cloud unified product as well as additional product. And then, we went through the API by status and then the planned update. And then, we also spend a little bit more time with the Parameters API and Model Aggregations in more details. Thank you very much.